The period right after people start taking antidepressant medication is not a period of increased risk. In fact, risk after starting medication is lower than before.
He's been visiting with people, first thanking them for all the work they did while he was in public service, and he's listening to people to see what they thought went right and wrong.
The risk of a serious suicide attempt in people who start taking antidepressant medication is, fortunately, quite low -- less than one in 1,000. The risk actually goes down after people start antidepressant medication.
People should be closely monitored, but not because these drugs are especially risky. The real problem in the treatment of depression is that people start medicine and the medicine has side effects or the medicine doesn't work right away, and they get discouraged and they drop out.
Young people propose ambitious projects that may not work, so they don't get funded. Everybody else is proposing something where they've already done 90 percent of the work. It's one reason why progress is so incremental.